TODAY is World Sight Day and Lions clubs and JW Chandler Funerals are urging people who live or work in the Hawkesbury to donate glasses they’re no longer using.
The Lions Club initiative, Recycle for Sight, has been collecting unused glasses for six years.
You can drop them in to JW Chandler Funerals at 348 Windsor Street, Richmond or 4 Suffolk Street, Windsor.
In the 15 years since the Australian program began some 2.5 million pairs of glasses have been delivered to countries in Africa, Europe, Middle East, Indian Sub-continent, East Asia, and the Far East, including China, the countries of the Pacific Rim and Southern Asia and Oceania.
Australian funeral directors have collected more than 250,000 of those glasses in the six years that they have supported the initiative.
But many more are needed urgently.
“If you have an unused or outdated pair of glasses sitting in your drawer then we urge you to drop them off with us,’’ JW Chandler Funerals location manager Genean Beetson said.
‘‘They will be sent on to a new home where they are desperately needed.’’
Used glasses are taken to a central depot where they’re cleaned, checked and classified by volunteer optometrists based on the prescription, before being shipped on to where they’re needed most.
Most recently glasses have been distributed in villages around Puerto Princesa and the Philippines. They are also sent to Africa, Europe, Middle East, Indian Sub-continent, East Asia, and the Far East, including China, the Pacific Rim and Southern Asia.
Six reasons to donate your unwanted glasses:
1. According to The World Health Organisation, 153 million people have uncorrected refractive errors (near-sightedness, far-sightedness or astigmatism) in their vision.
2. Millions of people in developing nations are pushed deeper into poverty simply because they don’t have glasses.
They can’t learn, because reading is difficult and they can’t work to the best of their ability, because they simply can’t see clearly.
3. Glasses can help a visually impaired child in Africa to learn to read.
4. Glasses can enable an adult in South-East Asia to get a job to support their family.
5. For an older person a pair of glasses means less dependence on others.
6. It costs Lions less than eight cents to provide a pair of glasses which can then change someone’s life.
